


All Kinds Of Courage

by Sam4265



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Angst, F/M, Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24263827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sam4265/pseuds/Sam4265
Summary: In their first year at Hogwarts Peter, Johnny, and Felicia uncovered a dark and deadly secret, effectively ending their fledgling friendship. Now, as they begin their sixth year, that secret returns to haunt them. Years of suppressed anger boil to the surface, and disaster looms both in the form of a deadly curse, and teenage drama.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Johnny Storm
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	All Kinds Of Courage

_ Then _

Peter hadn’t been able to stop staring since he walked into the Great Hall of the castle. He’d never seen anything like it before. Castles were something for pictures in history books, not for school. He’d sat in that little train car listening to the people around him talk excitedly about which house they wanted, and which one they thought they’d get. He’d heard that Slytherin was the worst, second only to Hufflepuff who was apparently very boring. He had filed it all away for later. Surely they’d give some sort of test to determine which house they belonged to, and Peter had always been good at tests. Hopefully he got a high enough score to end up in Gryffindor, or Ravenclaw. 

They shuffled around anxiously, surrounded on all sides by older students, teachers, or the firmly shut door to the exit. A tall elegant woman dressed in emerald green walked before them holding an old pointed hat and a coiled scroll. She placed the hat down on the bench before the long table of professors, and Peter feld his neck grow hot. He hadn’t realized the test would be in front of the entire school.

Then before their eyes the hat broke into song. Peter wasn’t quite sure what the symptoms of an aneurysm were, but perhaps hallucinations was one of them.

_ Oh, you may not think I’m pretty, _

_ But don’t judge on what you see, _

_ I’ll eat myself if you can find _

_ A smarter hat than me. _

_ There’s nothing hidden in your head _

_ The Sorting Hat can’t see, _

_ So try me on and I will tell you, _

_ Where you ought to be. _

No, Peter was certainly having a hallucination. A very vivid one. One that was very much aware of all of Peter’s hidden anxieties, unfortunately. Peter very quickly ran through all the secrets in his head, desperately trying to forget them so that the Sorting Hat didn’t blurt them out in front of the entire school. 

That time he’d thrown a baseball through the kitchen window and blamed the trash guys? Gone. 

Accidentally cheating on his math test when he’d looked over to see how many pencils Betty Brant had? Gone. 

Sneaking downstairs to watch while Uncle Ben re-watched old episodes of the Simpsons? Gone.

Unfortunately the only thing searching out these secrets seemed to do was make Peter lose any hope of forgetting them. 

“I am Professor McGonagall. When I call your name, you will put on the hat, and sit on the stool to be sorted,” the emerald dressed woman said. Peter felt his face go red as he thought about the time he’d sat at the courtyard in the mall so he could stare at the Victoria Secret store. 

Why couldn’t he have just focused on the Hogwarts houses like everyone else?

Professor McGonagall unfurled her scroll, and shouted out the first name for all to hear. 

“Allan, Elizabeth!” A small pale girl with strawberry blonde hair and terrified wide eyes stepped up to the bench. Professor McGonagall swept the Sorting Hat from the bench, and motioned for Elizabeth to sit down. Once she had, Professor McGonagall plunked the hat on the girl’s head, and the entire room went silent. Peter looked around anxiously, waiting for the airing of secrets to begin, but when the hat opened its mouth all it did was shout,

“GRYFFINDOR!” 

The table to Peter’s left, the one full of people wearing red and gold ties, stood up and cheered for Elizabeth. She grinned at the cheers and strutted over to them much more confidently than she had to the Sorting Hat.

When she reached them Peter overheard her introduce herself several times as ‘Liz’ before McGonagall read the next name. 

“Cage, Luke!” 

After a moment, “GRYFFINDOR!” 

Peter waited anxiously while the rest of the names between C and P were called out. Though the first two new students had both been Gryffindors, each house was called out over the next few minutes. 

Before long McGonagall read out, “Parker, Peter!” 

Peter swallowed hard and made his way to the bench where McGonagall stood with the Sorting Hat. He really hoped the hat wouldn’t suddenly change it’s mind and air Peter’s dirty laundry to the whole school. He’d just remembered the time when he’d put a red shirt in with his whites and had worn pink underwear for a month. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Alistair Smythe hadn’t pantsed him in the cafeteria. 

Peter dropped onto the little bench and sat still while Professor McGonagall set the Sorting Hat on his head. 

The first thing Peter heard was a humming in his mind. 

_ Curious _

He jerked in surprise, and looked around with his eyes, wondering if anyone else was hearing what he heard. 

_ Courage, of course, and lots of it. Intelligence enough for Ravenclaw, I see.  _

Oh, Peter understood now. The Sorting Hat was in his mind. This was what it had meant when it said there was nothing in Peter’s head it couldn’t see. 

_ There’s more though…. A thirst to prove yourself, ambition, drive. You’d do  _ anything _ for those you love. Common traits of a Slytherin…. _

Peter looked over to the table of green and silver ties. Several people had gone over to that table as the sorting went on, including some of the people Peter had been on the train with. An ivory haired girl named Felicia Hardy, a pretentious but kind boy called Harry Osborn, and a blind red-head named Matt Murdock. Peter had liked them, he probably wouldn’t mind sharing a table with them, but what about the other houses? The Gryffindor’s had been the most enthusiastic so far, almost to the point of being obnoxious, but surely it was nice for the new Gryffindor students. 

Then there were the Ravenclaws. They’d cheered in a much more dignified manner than the other houses, and Peter had heard a lot about how Ravenclaw was where the smart kids went. He knew he was a smart kid, so perhaps he belonged there?

_ It’s not quite so simple as that, though, is it? Yes, you’re smart, but intelligence is not your defining character. Is it loyalty? Is it courage? Is it ambition? _

How was Peter supposed to know his defining character? He was eleven!

_ Yes, but how you’ll grow. I can see it all here in your head. It’s become clear to me. You’re a- _

“GRYFFINDOR!”

Peter sat, stunned as the Sorting Hat said the final word out loud. He looked over to the Gryffindor table, where the red and gold ties were cheering outrageously for him. McGonagall plucked the hat from Peter’s head and he ran over to join his new house. A boy named Flash Thompson congratulated him as he took Peter’s hand and shook it vigorously up and down, straining Peter’s shoulder. 

Johnny watched as Peter Parker jogged over to the Gryffindor table. So far the sorting had been long and arduous, and he cursed his last name for starting with a letter so far down the alphabet. He sighed and looked around again for Reed and Sue. They were seventh years this year, which Johnny was grateful for. His parents might not be alive to see him sorted, but at least Sue could be there in person. 

He found them sitting next to each other at the Ravenclaw table, chatting amiably with one of the new students. Sue looked up after a moment, and gave him a supportive smile and a thumbs up. Johnny gave her a thumbs up back, but he still felt a little queasy. He knew he shouldn’t be nervous, everyone got sorted, but he was. Mostly he was nervous because he knew he wasn’t going to live up to his family. Reed and Sue were both Ravenclaws, and Ben was a Gryffindor. Johnny would never be smart enough to be sorted into Ravenclaw, he knew that. Maybe the hat would think he was brave enough for Gryffindor, but if he were being honest with himself he was almost certain that he was doomed for Hufflepuff, the loser house. He knew Hufflepuff’s weren’t all bad, but he wasn’t even sure what their defining character was supposed to be. All he knew was that when all the other founders had specified qualities they wanted in their students, Helga Hufflepuff had said  _ give me everybody who doesn’t measure up _ . More or less. 

Johnny had never measured up to anyone or anything in his life, so he knew he was destined for Hufflepuff. 

Finally, after Gwen Stacy joined the ranks of Ravenclaws and shook hands vigorously with Sue, Johnny heard it.

“Storm, Jonathan!” 

Johnny tossed his blond hair and strutted purposefully to the bench. Sue watched him attentively with a big smile on her face. Reed and Ben were watching too. Johnny sat down, not letting an ounce of his nerves show. Professor McGonagall plopped the hat onto his head, and almost immediately Johnny heard the Sorting Hat’s voice in his head. 

_ Oh, dear child, your character is so clear. Rarely have I been as sure as I am now. There’s no debate for me, no. You’re a- _

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

Johnny hadn’t even had time to argue with the hat, or ask him why he chose Hufflepuff. In seconds Johnny’s fate was decided, and the next thing he knew the hat was snatched off his head, and he was herded to a table full of cheering people with ties the same color as his hair. The Hufflepuff’s clapped him on the back and introduced themselves, and Johnny kept a brave face through it all, but he couldn’t help but be endlessly disappointed. He had expected the worst, and he’d gotten it. 

He tried not to pout too obviously as the sorting resumed. The last Hufflepuff was an enormously tall boy called Wyatt Wingfoot. He sat next to Johnny with a big smile and congratulated him on becoming a Hufflepuff. Johnny didn’t have the heart to tell him that this was the loser house. 

“It’s kind of nice, you know? Knowing that my defining character is loyalty,” Wyatt said. Johnny side-eyed him.

“What do you mean?” He asked. 

“Well Gryffindor’s courage, Slytherin’s ambition, Ravenclaw’s intelligence, and Hufflepuff's loyalty. I like knowing that about myself. Makes things a little clearer I guess,” Wyatt explained. 

As the feast commenced and the table filled with food and drink Johnny couldn’t help but linger on what Wyatt said. He hadn’t realized the Hufflepuff trait was loyalty, and the Sorting Hat had been so sure of him. He hadn’t realized how deeply ingrained in him his loyalty was. But that couldn’t be the only reason. Loyal or not, Hufflepuff was still the loser house, and Johnny belonged there more than anywhere else. What did that say about him? 

As the feast went on the headmaster made a speech about their time at Hogwarts, warned them not to go into the Forbidden Forest, to be wary of the dangers of the castle, and bid them goodnight. Johnny felt sluggish as he stood from the table, weighed down by heavy food and disappointment. Wyatt talked excitedly at Johnny as they filed out of the hall. Johnny looked around, trying to block out Wyatt’s cheerfulness and find Sue. He saw a flash of something down a far corridor as the four houses began to split apart. He looked back at Wyatt and the other Hufflepuffs heading in the direction of the dungeons with the Slytherins. 

Johnny would be able to find them later, he was sure. 

Quickly and quietly he slipped out of line, and followed the flash of something glittery down the empty corridor. 

He walked hurriedly down the corridor, desperate not to be seen. He heard footsteps behind him, and threw himself through the first open door he saw, shutting it firmly behind him. 

“Hey, no fair! I found this place first!” 

Peter found that Flash Thompson was both incredibly shy and obnoxiously boisterous. He said a lot without saying much. He mostly talked about Quidditch. He was excited for it to start, and wondered aloud if Gryffindor would accept first years this year. Peter, who had little to no idea what Quidditch was, told Flash that they probably would. 

When the houses left the Great Hall they almost immediately began to split in two. Half went toward the dungeons (a sorry fate, and Peter was suddenly glad he wasn’t a Slytherin), and half went up to the towers. Peter began to follow the Gryffindor’s up, half listening as Flash got several other people’s opinions on the question of first years in Quidditch, when something caught his eye. It was sort of glittery, and when he turned to look directly at it, it was gone. It had disappeared down an empty corridor. Peter, unable to help his curious nature and emboldened by the idea that his core character trait was courage, followed the glittering thing down the hall. He didn’t see it as he walked, not until finally he passed by a closed door and thought he saw a glint of something in the keyhole. 

He opened the door cautiously and was greeted by the sight of two other first years. One was the girl with the white hair, Felicia Hardy. The other was a blond Hufflepuff boy. Peter hadn’t paid much attention to the sorting after he’d been sorted himself, but he was pretty sure the boy’s name was Johnny, and that his last name had something to do with the weather. Maybe Hurricane or Cloud or something. They both jumped when they saw him.

“Shut the door!” Felicia hissed. Peter did as he was told because he didn’t have a reason not to.

“What are you both doing here?” He whispered. He wasn’t really sure why they were whispering, there had been no one else down this corridor. 

“I saw something and I followed it in here,” Felicia said. It seemed a bad reason to walk into a deserted corridor and lock yourself in a dark room, but Peter, who had done exactly the same, had no leg to stand on. 

“We should probably go,” he said anyway. He didn’t really mean it though, not even as he said it. 

“No way, I find out my long lost dad is a wizard, I come to a magic school, and I  _ ignore _ the first bit of magic I see? Absolutely not!” Felicia said, aghast. The boy, Johnny, looked between them both. He looked wary. 

“I saw it too,” he said, “but I don’t know what it was.”

“Well maybe if we turned the lights on we could see it,” Peter suggested. He could just barely make out the outlines of the two of them from the light coming from behind the closed door. 

“ _ Lumos _ ,” Johnny said. The tip of his wand lit with a small white light. The light shined directly in his face and he flushed pink as it flickered.

“Sorry, still working on it,” he said. He narrowed his eyes in concentration, and finally the flickering stopped as the light grew larger. It’s reach expanded in a small circle, enveloping the three of them just enough to see by. 

They looked around the room and found that it was one of Hogwarts’s many classrooms. Strange runic carvings covered the walls. Artifacts from all over history sat in storage cases and on top of display tables. Peter moved towards one, a skull decorated with sharp pointed runes along the forehead. Everything was covered in layers of dust. 

“What is all this?” He asked. 

“This must be the Ancient Runes classroom. My sister took Ancient Runes in her third year,” Johnny said. 

“Can you read any of it?” Felicia asked. Johnny joined Peter by the skull. Like Peter he was hesitant to touch it, but he did trace a finger through the air down the runic writing. 

“I recognize some of the symbols, but I can’t read them,” he said. 

“Well all this just looks like a bunch of junk to me,” Felicia pouted. “The thing I followed in here was shiny. None of this stuff is shiny.” 

Peter frowned at her. 

“You weren’t planning to steal it, were you?” He asked. 

“Gryffindors,” she huffed crossly. Peter gave her an afronted look. Apparently she too had been taught of the long standing feud between their houses, but unlike Peter she had obviously decided to continue the tradition. 

“Slytherins,” Peter shot back, proving himself to be of superior moral virtue.

“You both sound like idiots,” Johnny said crossly. “Now, since we’ve decided there’s nothing worth stealing, and we probably all experienced a mass hallucination when we saw that glittery thing, can we  _ please _ get out of here?” 

Felicia and Peter muttered their agreements, still glaring at each other in the gloom.

“Fantastic,” Johnny muttered. They began to walk out of the room when out of the corner of their eyes they saw it again. The glittering.

They whipped around in unison and finally they saw it clearly, it was nothing but a hole in the wall, glowing brightly and glittering at them. As they stepped closer Johnny shined his light over the hole, and they could see a rune carved next to it. It was smaller than most of the runes on the wall, but it blended in easily enough. It looked like a lightning bolt, or perhaps a sharp and jagged S.

Felicia crept forward and touched the hole, covering it with her finger and blocking out the light. Dust skittered up into the air as she did. 

“I guess it’s behind this wall,” she said. Johnny stepped forward. He ran his finger in a straight line from the hole across the wall, stopping about two inches from where he started and creating a line in the dust.

“Here, there’s a groove in the wall. It must be a door, we just have to figure out how to open it,” he said. 

“Is there a spell that can do that?” Peter asked, joining them in a crouched position. Johnny frowned.

“I think so, I just have to remember- oh!  _ Alohomora! _ ” 

Nothing happened. 

“I don’t think that was it,” Felicia said. 

“No, that was it. It doesn’t work if the lock is protected by magic. I guess you just need the key to unlock this thing,” Johnny said. Peter looked around the room.

“Well the key must be here somewhere. Come on, help me look.” 

Together the three of them worked their way through the classroom, searching in every nook and cranny for the missing key. After almost an hour of searching they were finally willing to admit defeat. 

“What now?” Peter asked. Felicia glared at the little glowing light emanating from the wall. 

“Well, we know that the key must be somewhere in the castle, so all we have to do is find it.”

“But where would we even begin to look for it?” Johnny asked. “I don’t know if you noticed on the boat ride in, but this castle is enormous.” 

“Well since the glittering glowing thing led us here, maybe it’ll lead us to the key, too. All we have to do is wait for it to come to us,” Peter said. Felicia gave him another one of her unimpressed looks.

“ _ Gryffindors _ ,” she said with feeling. Peter felt his cheeks flush, but before he could work himself up to anger, Johnny stepped between them. 

“This is not helping,” he said. “Look, Peter’s right. This thing found us, so we just wait for it to find us again.” 

Felicia still didn’t like it, but for lack of a better idea it became their plan. They said goodbye for the night and left the Ancient Runes classroom together. Unfortunately none of the three of them actually knew where their house common rooms were, though they did know that Johnny and Felicia’s were in the dungeons, and Peter’s was in one of the towers. 

They wandered the castle for what seemed like hours until a very helpful ghost who introduced himself as the Fat Friar found them. 

“Oh a new Hufflepuff! How exciting!” The Friar said. “Come dear, I’ll show you to the Hufflepuff common room. As for the Slytherin and the Gryffindor, I’ll call your house ghosts to lead you back. You’ll both need passwords to get into your common rooms, and I’m never privy to those.” 

Johnny bid Felicia and Peter goodbye, and followed the Friar down toward the kitchens. Peter and Felicia waited mostly in silence for their house ghosts to arrive.

“I don’t know why you listened to the Slytherins about the house feud. I don’t see any reason to hate you,” Peter said. Felicia looked crossly at him.

“If I don’t hate you then the Slytherins will think there’s something wrong with me,” Felicia said. “You know the same thing is true about the Gryffindors.”

Peter didn’t want to admit it, but he had been getting that feeling over dinner. 

“I’m brave enough to stand up to them,” he said proudly. Of course he was brave enough, the Sorting Hat had said so. Felicia rolled her eyes at him.

“That’s stupid,” she said. “You’re eleven. You can’t stand up to anybody.”

Before Peter could get indignant and argumentative a gruesome looking ghost arrived. He was dressed nobly, but his clothes were covered in glistening white blood. Disturbingly it looked like it was more than just his own.

“This way,” he said to Felicia. She waved politely at Peter, an unhappy twist to her lips, and then followed the Baron down to the dungeons. 

Peter hadn’t liked standing there alone with Felicia, but he liked standing there entirely by himself even less. A chill shivered up his spine, and he crossed his arms, rubbing his shoulders in an attempt to warm and comfort himself. He turned back to the corridor they’d come from and saw the glittering light again. It was hovering somewhere around the door knob, and seemed to be watching Peter unhappily. 

“Well if you can show us where the key is, we’ll let you out,” Peter told it. The light quivered unhappily and then disappeared inside the keyhole in the door. 

“And there’s our missing first year!” A chiding voice called. Peter whipped around to see another stately dressed ghost. He’d been introduced to Nearly Headless Nick during dinner, but he hadn’t dared ask about the nearly headlessness. He found himself even less inclined to now as he was completely alone and wasn’t in the mood to be chastised.

“Hello Sir Nicholas,” he said instead. “I’m sorry. I was with some friends from different houses and we got lost.”

Nick sighed.

“It’s all right my boy, but next time keep on with the Gryffindor’s, eh? I’ll take you back tonight, but next time I’m going to have to call the prefect.” 

Peter ducked his head in shame. 

“Yes, Sir Nicholas.” 

“Now just remember, the password is fiddledeedee this week.” 

Johnny crept into the common room as quietly as he could. He was embarrassed enough to have needed the Fat Friar’s help to get back, but it would be even worse if someone were to catch him at it. Thankfully everyone seemed mostly absorbed in their own lives, and otherwise most of the other Hufflepuffs were off to sleep. Johnny walked past the older students sitting around the common room chatting noiselessly, and arrived at the staircase. Unfortunately he wasn’t sure whether to go right or left for the boys rooms. He supposed he should have asked the Friar. He looked around for someone he recognized, but since he hadn’t actually tried to talk to any of the other Hufflepuffs he recognized no one. Instead he asked a kind looking older boy who was sitting next to one of the great many ferns which way he should go. 

“Boys is on the left,” the boy said, barely looking up from his book. Johnny thanked him and headed up to his dormitory. 

Inside he found Wyatt Wingfoot and three other Hufflepuff boys laughing as they gathered around a pile of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans.

“Storm! There you are!” Wyatt called. “Come on, we’re trying to guess which flavors are the grossest!” 

Johnny steeled his nerves and walked over to the other boys. 

“All right,” he said. “What’ve we got?” 

Time passed slowly in their first few weeks at Hogwarts. Johnny and the other Hufflepuffs mostly had classes with the Gryffindors, so he got to see Peter a lot. They partnered up often for projects and spellwork, and were becoming fast friends, at least Johnny thought so. He could never be sure whether Peter actually liked him, or whether he just had no desire to find another partner. 

The Hufflepuffs had a couple of classes with the Slytherins, too, and whenever they did Johnny partnered with Felicia. She usually wouldn’t be seen with Peter, but she had no problem partnering with Johnny. According to her, no one hated the Hufflepuffs. Johnny wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. Taken at face value it was nice, but it could mean that no one cared about the Hufflepuff’s enough to hate them. Johnny might have been overthinking it, but he wasn’t sure that he was. 

It was almost a month before they saw the light again. It came to each of them as it had before. Johnny was in charms with Felicia, and together they followed it through the castle to the seventh floor. They walked through several empty corridors before finally the light disappeared just as they rounded the corner to find a dead end where Peter was waiting.

“Where did it go?” Felicia asked. She walked around the dead end. She hunted around, and found that there were corridors to the right and left, but they just led back downstairs. 

“I don’t know. The only thing here is this wall,” Peter said. He watched it critically, and Johnny joined him.

Together they stared at the stone in uneventful silence. 

“Why are you two just standing there?” Felicia snapped. 

“It might move, or there might be another hole like the last wall,” Johnny said. 

“You two are  _ idiots _ ,” she muttered. She walked past them from one corridor to the other. Then finally a third time in frustration. As she passed the wall a third time the stone began to change, and morph into a solid wood door. Johnny lept back in surprise. Peter glanced back at him before stepping forward to examine the door. This one had a keyhole as well, but when Peter went to touch it the door simply fell open.

“Excellent,” Felicia said. She strutted determinedly past them both, and Peter followed quickly after her, but Johnny lingered behind. He’d been wary when he followed the first light, and the fact that it had led them to the Ancient Runes classroom hadn’t quelled his worry any. He remembered when Sue had taken Ancient Runes. She’d said most of the artifacts the school had were dangerous, old, and occasionally cursed. She said that Hogwarts had many secrets, but they were secrets for a reason. It was best not to go poking at them. Still, as far as Johnny knew a glittering glowing light had never led her around the castle. He liked the idea of being specially chosen by the castle itself to find one of its many secrets. 

With refreshed determination Johnny followed Peter and Felicia inside. The door shut pointedly behind him. 

“Now  _ this _ is my kind of place!” Felicia exclaimed. 

The room they found themselves in was full of piles and piles of random assortments of items. Furntaure, books, clothes, trophies, silverware, swords, scattered pieces of parchment, broken bits of wands, birdcages, bones, jars full of different colored potions. Any and all odd and random wizarding items were littered around the room. The piles were huge, some of them reaching a ceiling that towered above them with stone arches. Johnny looked down at one of the tables and found a book entitled  _ Malicious Curses for the Malignant Witch or Wizard _ , a massive golden goblet with a crack down the side, and a list of names with different numbers of hearts drawn next to them written on half-burnt parchment. They were all piled together without any rhyme or reason, no concern for categorization or documentation. It was as if over the years these items had just been left there by people who didn’t want them anymore. Given the seemingly dangerous, scandalous, or broken quality of most of the items Johnny thought they were probably objects people wanted hidden.

“What is this place?” He asked. 

“I don’t know, but the key must be in here somewhere,” Peter said as he examined a silver stoppered bottle full of a glittering blue potion. 

“I have to agree with Peter on this one,” Felicia said, holding out a bowl full of different sized keys. 

“The question is which key is the right one?” She asked. 

“Look for one that has that Y looking thing carved on it. The one from the Ancient Runes classroom,” Johnny suggested. 

“Good idea. Going through these is going to take ages though,” she said. Johnny frowned and looked around the room.

“Something tells me it isn’t going to be there,” he said. Peter nodded. 

“It definitely isn’t there,” he said. 

“Oh, and how do you know?” Felicia asked scathingly. 

“I just do.” 

“You just do? What is that Gryffindor for  _ I guess _ ?” 

“Guys!” Johnny snapped. “Look, we can all agree this key is special, right?” 

They nodded.

“Then we can also agree that we’re probably not going to find it just sitting in a bowl full of keys right at the front door. Right?” 

They nodded again, Felicia more reluctantly than Peter. 

“Then we’ve got to look around some more. Let’s go deeper inside and see what we find,” he suggested. 

Felicia dropped the bowl of keys onto the floor, letting the keys scatter out from the open lid. 

“Oops,” she said tonelessly, then stalked off, leading them further into the room. Johnny bit back a sigh as Peter followed after her, yelling about how much trouble they’d be in if they accidentally broke anything of value.

As they continued through the room they passed all manner of odd and unsettling artifacts. Johnny began to genuinely worry that perhaps they were in over their head. Just as he was about to suggest they turn back Peter shouted out. 

“There!” He pointed to a set of three tables collected in one of the far corners of the room. On top each of them there was an object. On one sat a gold coin necklace that depicted a fire which had been created with a ruby that seemed to glow and flicker orange. The next table held a ring made of silver, coiled and braided like a spider’s web, with a sapphire spider sitting in the center of it. The final table held a silver bracelet set with an onyx that had pointed silver tips like cats ears.

“None of these things is a key, Peter,” Felicia said as she examined the bracelet. 

“I think we should take them,” Peter said. 

“What? Why?” Johnny asked, his voice high pitched and worried.

“I’ve got a feeling,” Peter said, not offering any further explanation.

“Well, I’m sold,” Felicia said, her eyes glinting hungrily as she watched for the bracelet. Johnny suddenly remembered that she’d been following the light in an attempt to steal whatever had been the source of the shine. 

“But-” His protests were ignored as Peter reached for the ring and Felicia reached for the bracelet. When nothing happened Johnny sighed and reached for the necklace. The now empty tables seemed to tremble and then suddenly they cracked and buckled, the wood reshaping itself as it turned into a large chest. The chest was covered in lines and locks of all shapes and sizes, and resembled something of a puzzle box. Most of the locks were in the shape of keys, but one was in the shape of a coin, one in the shape of a spider, and one in the shape of a cat. 

“This seems like a very bad idea,” Johnny muttered. 

“Speak for yourself,” Felicia said, already fitting her bracelet to the third lock. 

“I was,” Johnny muttered. He watched as Peter pressed the ring into the first lock. There was a click and Peter grinned. 

Peter and Felicia looked at Johnny, who frowned, still uncertain.

“I really don’t think we should be doing this,” he said. 

“Hurry up Hufflepuff,” Felicia said snidely. The way she said it was clearly meant to be an insult, and Johnny felt a sharp hot pain in his chest. “I want to see what’s in this box.” 

Their gazes were unwavering and disappointed, and Johnny, spurred on by the idea that they thought him weaker than them, shoved the necklace into the lock, but nothing happened. 

“Did we do it wrong?” Felicia asked. 

“Maybe put them in order,” Peter suggested. So they started again. They each removed their keys, and then replaced them to the chest in order from left to right. First Peter used the ring, and they heard a click. Then Johnny used the necklace, and they heard a click. Finally, Felicia put the bracelet in place, and there they heard the final click. 

The chest swung open to reveal a key sitting inside. It was old and misshapen and made of stone. A lightning bolt rune was carved into the length of it. Peter reached for it, but Johnny held him back.

“Look,” Johnny said. 

On the lid of the chest there was an inscription written entirely in some runic script. 

“We should figure out what that says,” Johnny said. 

“Good idea.” Peter said as he determinedly snatched the key from the chest. “Find some parchment and a pen, we’ll write it down.”

Johnny glared at the key in Peter’s hand, but he said nothing and did as he was told. He hunted around the room but eventually found a scrap of parchment large enough to write the runes down on, a quill, and an ink well. 

He returned to the chest and held the items out to Peter, who raised an eyebrow at them. Johnny, bitter but unwilling to get into a fight about something so silly, diligently copied each symbol as well as he could. 

“We should get out of here. We might have time left to go to the Ancient Runes classroom before curfew,” Peter said, emboldened by their success. 

“No, we have to wait for curfew. If we go now someone might catch us,” Felicia said. Johnny finished copying the last of the runes and folded up the paper before pocketing it. 

“I think we should translate this before we try to open the door,” he said. “It might be instructions.” 

It might be a warning. 

“Instructions for unlocking a door? Are you stupid? Do  _ you _ need to be taught how to unlock a door?” Felicia asked. Johnny crossed his arms to keep them from seeing his hands shake.

“ _ No,  _ but this box required specific keys to be inserted in a specific order, so maybe the door in the Ancient Runes classroom is the same. It does have the little Y symbol on it, maybe you have to do something to it. If we don’t translate this, we might never get it open.” 

Felicia pouted and Peter sighed, put-out. 

“Fine, we’ll translate it first, but how are we supposed to do that? We’re first years!” Felicia said. 

“I’ll take it to my sister,” Johnny decided.

“No way! She might want in on whatever treasure we find!” Felicia gasped. Johnny wasn’t sure when they’d decided that whatever was inside the little door was actually treasure, but he was certain that this supposed treasure was the only reason that Felicia was helping them. 

“My sister already took Ancient Runes, if we ask for her help she’ll have it translated by tomorrow. If we don’t ask her we’ll have to figure it out ourselves and that’ll take weeks,” Johnny insisted. 

Peter, who had remained largely silent as Johnny and Felicia quarreled, held his hands out to silence them both.

“All right, I’ve decided we’re going to ask Johnny’s sister for help,” he said. 

“Who made you boss?” Felicia snapped. 

“I’m the Gryffindor,” Peter said proudly. Johnny barely resisted rolling his eyes. Perhaps he would have felt the same if he too was a Gryffindor, but he wasn’t. He was a loser Hufflepuff.

“So?” Felicia asked, her green eyes like chips of ice. 

“I’m obviously in charge. I stand up front, and you guys back me up,” Peter said decidedly. Johnny sighed, and before another screaming match could begin he stepped between the two of them. 

“Let’s just get out of here,” he muttered. 

Still simmering with defiance, Peter and Felicia finally backed down.

“Fine, but we’d better keep these,” Felicia said, pocketing the onyx bracelet. “Just in case.” 

Peter followed suit, and Johnny, thinking it best not to start yet  _ another  _ argument, took the necklace and pulled it on over his head. He hid it under his shirt and sweater. 

They finally took their leave of the mysterious room, and once they were outside they split three ways, the door to the room shutting and disappearing behind them. Peter and Felicia were off to go simmer in their respective corners, and Johnny was off to track down his sister. 

He found her in the first place he looked: the library. 

“Sue, I need your help,” he said before even offering a hello. Sue looked up from a thick leather bound volume full of arithmancy scribbles that Johnny couldn’t even begin to understand, and narrowed her eyes at him.

“What did you do?” She asked. 

“I didn’t do anything!” Johnny said indignantly. “I just found some runes in the boys dormitory, and I thought maybe you could help me translate them.” 

“Runes in the Hufflepuff boys dormitory?” She asked, clearly in disbelief. 

“Yes,” Johnny sniffed. Sue rolled her eyes fondly and held out her hand. 

“All right, let me see them.”

Johnny handed her the scrap of parchment, and she got to work translating them. It wasn’t so simple as reading another language, Sue hadn’t taken enough Ancient Runes classes to be quite  _ that _ good at it, but she could translate letter by letter and then reword it all into english syllables. Sometimes the translations got muddled, and came out as really oddly worded gibberish passages. Johnny sincerely hoped this wasn’t one of those times. 

By the time Sue finally finished Johnny had almost gotten bored enough to traverse her arithmancy book. Thankfully, it hadn’t come to that. 

“This is really weird, Johnny. Are you sure you found this in a dormitory?” She asked. Johnny frowned. 

“Why? What does it say?” 

She handed him her translation and Johnny read it over. 

_ Here lieth the knife of silver which thee darkest of wizard used to cut heart from chest and thereby become free of weakness. Here lieth the knife of silver which is key to heart and chest and power. Here lieth the knife of silver which makes its master invincible in ways untold.  _

“This  _ is _ really weird,” Johnny said, an unpleasant feeling settling in his stomach. 

“You know what it sort of sounds like to me?” Sue asked. Johnny shook his head. 

“It sort of sounds like a passage from the original runic version of  _ The Tales of Beedle the Bard, _ ” she said. Johnny frowned. 

“I don’t recognize it,” he said. Their mother had read them the tales when they were little, but she’d died so long ago that Johnny couldn’t properly remember them. He’d stopped with childish nonsense like that the second the light had left his mother’s eyes. 

“You wouldn’t,” Sue said. “It sounds like  _ The Warlock’s Hairy Heart _ . Mom never read you that one because it was too gory. Here, let me see if I can find it.” She left for a moment, hunting through the adolescent shelf for a copy of the tales. When she returned she held a beat up copy with crinkled water-logged pages and mysterious stains on the cover.

“Here it is.  _ There was once a handsome, rich and talented young warlock, who observed that his friends grew foolish when they fell in love, gambolling and preening, losing their appetites and their dignity. The young warlock resolved never to fall prey to such weakness, and employed Dark Arts to ensure his immunity. _ ”

Johnny frowned. “I’ve never heard that one. What happens?”

“He ends up cutting his heart out to make sure he never feels love again. Then he meets a perfect maiden and wants his heart back, only since he’s kept it locked up so long it’s all shriveled up and hairy and gross. He puts it back in his chest, but it drives him crazy, so he cuts out the maiden’s heart to replace his own, except this time when he cuts his own heart out, he dies.”

Johnny stared at Sue as she wrinkled her nose at the pages of the tales. 

“No wonder Mom never let me read it,” Johnny said. He’d heard his parents arguing over him before. His mother saying he was a soft touch, his father calling him weak. He knew why they’d never have read it to him. It would’ve given him nightmares, and that would have made his father angry. 

“Well you can read it now if you want. I couldn’t find the runic copy, so you can take this one.” Sue handed him the book and Johnny took it carefully, doing his best not to rip the fragile binding. 

“Thanks, Sue,” he said. Sue nodded and waved him off.

“Hurry along,” she said. “I’ve got an exam tomorrow.” 

That night as Johnny lay in bed, curtains drawn, nothing but a feeble  _ lumos _ to light the pages, he read  _ The Warlock’s Hairy Heart _ in its entirety. The story chilled him to the bone, and he regretted not leaving the reading of it for morning, with light streaming through the high circular windows. 

It was the last page that truly scared Johnny. The wizard cut the heart from his maiden, and despaired as his own mad shriveled heart refused to leave his chest. 

_ Before the horror-struck eyes of his guests, the warlock cast aside his wand, and seized a silver dagger. Vowing never to be mastered by his own heart, he hacked it from his chest.  _

_ For one moment, the warlock knelt triumphant, with a heart clutched in each hand; then he fell across the maiden’s body, and died. _

As sleep took Johnny in it’s murky clutches, he felt his heart pound in his chest, and he dreamt of nothing but silver knives and blood. 

The next morning Johnny found Peter and Felicia under the big yew tree on the front lawn by the lake. Their backs were turned from the castle, and they were almost entirely hidden by the tree. Johnny was sure they were doing so in an attempt to keep from being caught by their respectives houses, but he found himself unreasonably jealous that they hadn’t bothered to invite him. He trudged through the dewy grass to where their robes just peeked out from behind the tree.

When he came upon them they jumped, and looked up at him with wide scared eyes, before relaxing when they saw it was only him. 

“I don’t think we should unlock that door,” Johnny said. Peter and Felicia both gave him irritated looks. 

“What now?” Peter asked.

Johnny handed them the parchment Sue had used to write her translation.

“That’s what was written on the lid of the box.” 

Peter and Felicia bent their heads together to read it over, and Johnny felt another hot flash of jealousy before he managed to stamp it down. 

“I don’t know, a knife that makes you invincible sounds like quite the treasure to me,” Felicia said. Peter frowned. 

“But it said  _ the darkest wizard _ . We can’t be using dark magic,” he said. 

“Oh, here we go. Another Gryffindor morality speech. Do you mind if I go to the bathroom while you finish?” Felicia asked. Peter’s face grew pink in that way that Johnny had come to associate with a brewing argument, and so Johnny interrupted them. 

“Sue also said that it sounded like a passage from the original version of  _ The Tales of Beedle the Bard _ ,” he said. They both looked at him quizzically. 

“What’s that?” Peter asked. Johnny had assumed they would ask, and so he handed over the copy from the school library. 

“It’s a book of wizarding fairytales. One of those tales is called  _ The Warlock’s Hairy Heart. _ In that one a dark wizard uses a silver knife to cut out his own heart and replace it with the heart of a maiden that he kills. A silver knife like the one in the passage from the chest,” Johnny said. Peter frowned. 

“Well if what we’re looking for is a knife that killed a bunch of people then I don’t want any part of it,” he said.

“What? Too noble for it?” Felicia asked. Peter shot her a glare. 

“Well, if you ask me, silver’s still silver, and I think we should go for it,” she said. Johnny despaired at the ridiculousness of the both of them. They were so caught up with disagreeing with each other that they couldn’t possibly care less about a single thing he said. Not the connection to the tales, or the danger they might be looking at. 

“Well I have the key so I decide what we do with it,” Peter said boldly. Felicia grinned sharp and feline. 

“Not anymore you don’t.” She held up the key between two fingers, and when Peter tried to grab it she snatched it away, hiding it somewhere they couldn’t see. 

“I’m going to the classroom tonight, and I’m going to open that door and see what’s in there. You can come if you want, but I’m going with or without you both,” she said hotly. 

To Johnny’s utter dismay, Peter relented. 

“Fine,” he muttered. 

“Good. Johnny, we’ll see you tonight,” Felicia said. Johnny, taking that as a not so subtle cue that he was decidedly  _ not _ invited to join them, fumed as he stalked off. The two of them remained behind the tree, and try as he might, Johnny couldn’t help the jealous rage that simmered inside him like a barely contained flame. 

That night the three of them snuck out of their houses and met up in the empty corridor where they’d first followed the shimmering light. They lit their wands with  _ lumos _ , having finally all learned the charm, and walked up and down the corridor in search of the Ancient Runes classroom. It was nowhere to be found. 

“It was right here!” Felicia fumed.

“Maybe this is a sign that we’re not supposed to unlock the door,” Johnny said. Peter shook his head. 

“No, but think about it. The staircases move, so why not the classrooms?” He asked. 

“Peter, none of the classrooms move, we’ve been having classes in them for months,” Felicia sighed. 

“But the classroom we were in was all dusty. Maybe it’s a lost classroom,” he said smartly. 

“A  _ lost _ classroom?” Felicia asked, looking very much like she was on the verge of a headache. 

“Well why not? Lots of things get lost,” Peter said. “Besides, everything here is magic.” 

Johnny shrugged. “My aunt’s house had a lost closet. It would disappear for the winter because it didn’t like the cold. I used to leave my winter coat in there over the summer, but I always forgot to take it out again before the closet disappeared.” 

Peter and Felicia stared at him with disbelieving eyes. 

“You had a disappearing closet?” Peter asked uncertainly.

“I’m agreeing with your theory!” 

“God you were even an idiot as a child,” Felicia sighed. Johnny crossed his arms defensively. 

“ _ The point is _ it’s possible that the classroom disappeared,” he snapped. Felicia sighed. 

“Fine. Then tell me Hufflepuff,  _ where _ has our missing classroom disappeared to?” she asked. 

Johnny licked his lips and looked around the corridor. He trailed along the wall before finally stopping where they had found the classroom the first time. 

“Sue used to do this to find the closet,” he said. “ _ Revelio _ .” 

The wall stuttered, it’s stoney exterior flickering, and a wood door revealed itself briefly before it was gone again.

“It’s still here!” Johnny exclaimed. 

“What was that spell you used?” Peter asked. 

“It’s the Revelio charm. It’s supposed to make hidden things visible, but it’s hard to do. Sue learned it at the end of her second year,” Johnny said. 

“Well fantastic, then Peter or I can do it,” Felicia said, lighting up. Johnny wanted to remind her that she and Peter were at the same level as he was, but before he could Peter pushed past them both and pointed his wand at the wall.

“ _ Revelio _ ,” he said, his voice powerful despite its youth. To Johnny’s utter humiliation, the image of the wall sputtered and then was gone, replaced by the wood door. 

“Told you, Hufflepuff,” Felicia said proudly. Johnny felt a lump in his throat, his eyes stinging wet and he blinked quickly to dispel the tears. He dug his nails into his palm to keep back the waves of embarrassment. 

“Come on!” Peter threw the door open and he and Felicia rushed inside. Johnny stayed in the corridor. He looked down at his wand and muttered, “ _ Lumos _ ,” but it did nothing. It didn’t even light. 

Johnny hastily put his wand away, and hoped that neither Felicia nor Peter had seen his second failure. He followed them inside to where they had already fitted the key into the lock on the little door. They hadn’t even waited for him. 

Something struck Johnny as familiar about the lightning shaped rune, but before he could think about it more, Felicia turned the key, the lock clicked, and the rune disappeared. 

Felicia flung the door open and inside they found another chest, almost identical to the one they’d found in the mysterious room on the seventh floor. Peter pulled it from its hiding place and set it on the floor of the classroom. There were three locks like last time. Each one in the shape of one of the items they had stolen from the mysterious room. 

“I know this one,” Felicia said, a satisfied smirk on her face. “Peter, if you would.” 

Without a word Peter took out his spider ring, and once again they went through the motions of unlocking all three locks. Once Felicia’s bracelet was in place, and the final lock clicked, the chest swung open to reveal their long sought after treasure. 

It was a long wickedly sharp silver knife, rusted along the blade and resting on a white cushion that was stained red with blood. 

Johnny felt the bottom drop out of his stomach and he stumbled back in horror. 

“Oh god,” Felicia gasped, her hand flying to cover her mouth. Without another word Peter slammed the chest shut and ripped their three keys from the locks. He shoved the chest back into its little hiding place and shut the door behind it, snatching the key from the lock. 

The three of them stumbled from the room and slammed the wood door shut behind them. Once the door had shut the enchantment returned, and concealed the door behind a mask of stone once more. 

They all stared at each other with wide frightened eyes, but Peter, seeing them in distress and desperate to live up to his house, stood tall.

“We’re never going to talk about this again,” he said fiercely. He handed Felicia back her bracelet and Johnny back his necklace. 

“We’re going to keep these separate, and we’re going to take this key and bury it in the Forbidden Forest, and we’re  _ never going to talk about this again _ . Agreed?” 

Felicia and Johnny exchanged a glance. In unison they spoke.

“Agreed.” 

That night, while the moon still hung high and a thick black curtain of darkness covered Hogwarts, the three of them stole into the forest, and walked towards the moon until they couldn’t see the treeline any longer. They found a tall tree with gnarled roots and ashen bark, and dug a hole about a foot into the earth. They dropped the key into the hole and covered it with dirt until the hole was filled. 

Their walk back was long and silent, and once they made it back inside the castle they looked at each other one final time, and went their separate ways.

It wasn’t for several weeks that Johnny thought to look up the lightning shaped rune that had disappeared as they unlocked the little door in the lost classroom. It was easy to find. The first book he picked up about runes told him what it meant. It was  _ Eihwaz _ , the rune of protection. It was a guard, an assurance. The knife could do no harm as long as the  _ Eihwaz  _ was in place. 

They had broken that enchantment, unlocked that door, making the key effectively useless. Now all that lie between them and the knife were the three keys they had stolen from the mysterious room: Peter’s ring, Felicia’s bracelet, and Johnny’s necklace.

**Author's Note:**

> The italicized passages:  
> The Sorting Hat's song is part of his song from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone  
> The passages from The Warlock's Hairy Heart are from The Tales of Beedle the Bard
> 
> This chapter was a short sort of introductory one and all the characters are eleven. The next chapter will have them aged up to catch up with the summary.


End file.
